So pretty!
There's nothing like a bit of baking to pass the time, especially now that we're all spending a lot more time indoors.
While it's not recommended to throw birthday parties at the moment there's nothing to say that we can't still celebrate our child's birthday in a very special way.
One great way to do that is by baking them a fun birthday cake and this recipe will help you do just that.
Who doesn't love a unicorn, and a unicorn covered in sweets, even better. I can't imagine there will be any disappointed faces when this cake is brought out.
Ingredients:
225g Digestive Biscuits
85g Unsalted Butter (melted)
700g Soft Cream Cheese
350g Double Cream
150g Icing Sugar
½ Lemon (juiced)
1 tsp Vanilla Extract
Pink, Red, Blue, Yellow and Green Food Colouring
All of these can be found in your local Aldi.
To Decorate:
150g Ready to Roll Icing
Pink Food Colouring
200ml Double Cream (whipped)
50ml Dark Chocolate (melted)
Plus any extra pastel coloured sweets for decoration (white chocolate buttons, bon bons, liquorice allsorts)
Equipment:
21cm Loose-Bottomed Tin
1 Cocktail Stick (trimmed)
Method:
1. Place the digestive biscuits in a food processor and blitz into crumbs.
2. Pour the melted butter over the biscuit crumbs and combine,
3. Press the crumbs into the base of the tin and leave to chill while you make the filling. Use an electric mixer to beat the cream cheese and icing sugar for a couple of minutes until smooth, light and fluffy.
4. Add the cream, lemon juice and vanilla extract into the cream cheese and whisk until fully combined and thickened.
5. Pour the mix between 5 bowls and use the food colouring to dye the mixture pale/pastel shades of pink, purple (blue and red), blue and green and yellow.
6. Pour the pink layer on top of the biscuit base and place in the freezer for 10-15 minutes to set long enough to add the next layer. Follow this process with the purple, blue, green and yellow layers.
7. When the final (yellow) layer is in place leave to set in the freezer for 30 minutes – 1 hour (we don’t want to freeze the cheesecake, just set it).
8. While the cheesecake sets, take 75g of the ready roll icing and add a drop of pink food colouring, then knead until an even colour is achieved.
9. Roll out a little of the white and pink icing, cut out two white triangles and two smaller pink triangles and the stick these together using a pastry brush and water to make the ears.
10. With the remaining icing, roll each into two strips then wrap them around the cocktail stick to create a two-tone unicorn horn.
11. Use the melted dark chocolate to pipe eyes and eyelashes and leave to cool.
12. To decorate, pipe the whipped cream on top of the cheesecake and round one side to create the mane. Place the ears and horn onto the cake, and then decorate with the sweets.
13. Finally, place the eyes on the front and serve chilled.
